This Masachika Kouda who is a friend of Rei Kiriyama’s father. In fact, Masachika-san is impressed on Rei’s shogi skills at a young age.

Oh yes, this is Rei Kiriyama as a little boy and sitting beside him is Rei’s father.

By the way, his father was once a shogi player but deciding to take over the family’s hospital. Still, Rei Kiriyama has a deep bond with his busy father by playing shogi.

That’s until Rei’s family has caught in an accident. Not only his parents are killed, but also his younger sister.

None of his relatives are interested on adopting Rei Kiriyama as they’re interested on who’ll take over the hospital once his grand-father passed away. Therefore, Masachika Kouda decided to adopt Rei instead.

However, being with the Kouda family has some challenges as Rei’s brilliant shogi skills has put off some of Masachika’s children.

Rei’s older step-sister Kyouko Kouda got angry at him for being too good at shogi, while Kyouko’s younger brother Ayumu have quit playing shogi as he couldn’t beat Rei at all. By the time he became a professional, Rei’s relationship with the Kouda family (except for Masachika-san) has been completely strained that he’s like a cuckoo bird.

For those who don’t know what a cuckoo bird is, they throw away the eggs from the nest. Basically, what Masachika did is that he adopted a prodigy like Rei, only for Kiriyama to destroy his children through shogi.

Now, the only thing that’s left for Rei Kiriyama is Masachika’s sweater. While they remained friends, I have to say that Masachika’s children still hates him for ruining their lives.

With that said, I think Rei’s current life is somewhat better thanks to the Kawamoto sisters. Then again, who knows what challenges will befall on him. In any case, I’ll see you on the next episode.